This is what I have to say on the matter, I have a hard time accepting the notion that DD fell apart at all when I have watched other things that don't even come close to this.
Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
edited February 2017
DD season 1 - was good, Fisk was awesome
DD season 2 - I loved Punisher and The Hand story was really fun for me.
JJ - Great first half, not great second half.
Luke Cage - It is my favorite show of the Marvel Netflix shows. Love the style, enjoyed most of the characters. Cottonmouth was amazing. I enjoyed Luke being the closest thing to an actual hero on these shows. I didnt care for the other villain on the show, but Mariah and Shades wew amazing.
Season 1 started off slow, but I thought Season 2 had some pretty good development, and I didn't mind seeing where the City of Light stuff was going, but everything surrounding Pike was just an immediate "what the fuck are you idiots doing". Oh well.
It isn't a bad show. It didn't go in a direction that a lot of the really dedicated audience wanted it to go. Pike was the worst thing the show ever did, and Bellamy is forever tainted by it, but the show hasn't exactly forgiven him for it yet (even if Clarke has).
It's nothing, since it doesn't matter in the slightest. So that's a weird response.
Luke Cage is worse than Ninjas, though.
Man, what? Luke Cage had a lot to say about societal violence, about black people's struggles, about music, community, and looking fucking sharp in a suit with bullet holes. The ninjas portion of Daredevil season 2 had a little to say about Matt being a danger addict who abandons his responsibilities. Even the Punisher aspect of DD season 2 fell flat... he didn't even mow down an army of ninjas with that minigun.
The bolded are important messages and I agree that Luke Cage's story conveyed those things.
But something can have a good and meaningful message yet still be boring and/or not entertaining.
edit: fwiw, I'd put Luke Cage S1 above DD S1, but below DD S2 and Jessica Jones
Season 1 started off slow, but I thought Season 2 had some pretty good development, and I didn't mind seeing where the City of Light stuff was going, but everything surrounding Pike was just an immediate "what the fuck are you idiots doing". Oh well.
It isn't a bad show. It didn't go in a direction that a lot of the really dedicated audience wanted it to go. Pike was the worst thing the show ever did, and Bellamy is forever tainted by it, but the show hasn't exactly forgiven him for it yet (even if Clarke has).
I think this was the worst part about that whole thing. They had done a really amazing job with his character development up until that point and then just sort of went "screw it" and backtracked all of it.
I pretty much agree with your assessment entirely. I still like the show (haven't started the current season yet), though am disappointed that it hasn't really been what I thought it would be post season 1.
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BeezelThere was no agreement little morsel..Registered Userregular
My eyes glazed over with every part of Daredevil that had to do with the Hand. Overall they just existed as an enemy capable of kicking Matt's ass it seemed like. On Luke Cage I literally laughed out loud on that final fight because that was some serious jank.
Overall I liked the series that came out but they're two for two on "Great start, terrible finish." With Maybe Jessica Jones probably avoiding it. I had problems with that for other reasons mostly because of how skeeved out my girlfriend got every time Killgrave was on screen. Probably their strongest written villain that isn't Wilson Fisk.
Bwa ha ha, they made a CGI movie of Gantz called Gantz:O (not zero, the letter "O", because it's Gantz). It's on Netflix.
Seems to be an alternate reality version, not a continuation of the original anime. It doesn't appear that Kei and Kato know each other in this version, though I'm only halfway through.
EDIT: Oh that scamp Gantz. Anyway, I guess this classifies as anime, so I won't say anything further.
The moment that I lost interest in Luke Cage was the moment they switched from one Snake to another Snake. :-P Although the musical acts throughout the show were absolutely AMAZING. Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings!
I think I feel better about DD Season 1 and Jessica Jones because they focus on a single villain arc through the whole thing. DD Season 2 and Luke Cage feels very bait-and-switchy, especially with how strong they start out.
The moment that I lost interest in Luke Cage was the moment they switched from one Snake to another Snake. :-P Although the musical acts throughout the show were absolutely AMAZING. Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings!
I think I feel better about DD Season 1 and Jessica Jones because they focus on a single villain arc through the whole thing. DD Season 2 and Luke Cage feels very bait-and-switchy, especially with how strong they start out.
The thing that sneaks up on you is that it isn't about the main dude villains.
Mariah and Shades are the main villains, they're the Fisk/Wesley pairing shippers wanted. The one-two punch of criminal and politician.
I haven't watched Luke Cage, but good music doesn't make me like a TV show. I can just listen to music and not spend 60 minutes watching a TV show. I anticipate that I won't like Luke Cage, but I'm not that into the Marvel stuff in the first place.
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
I just wanna re-litter rate that Powerless is really good and you should watch it. Three episodes ready for you to get your binge on, as the kids vlog about these days.
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
There's a new Netflix comedy special up. No, not Trevor Noah, it seems very cruel to make someone so unfunny do a standup special #airhornmegarekt.
This is a lady named Katherine Ryan, a canadian living in the uk who I know mainly from 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and some other panel shows, and her schtick if you want to call it that is being a little bit like Joan Rivers. It's an hour special that is alright, nowhere near as good as Maria Bamford or Jimmy Carr's, but nowhere near as bad as Iliza Schlesinger and I'd say better than Bill Burr's recent special. She goes to crowd work immediately which is kind of weird because half of material is pretty smart and funny, she just takes a long time to get into the stories by trying to pad out stuff with audience questions. And sometimes she has super smart comebacks and jokes but at the same time it comes across like she was just waiting until she found someone to play off a pre-scripted thing, and you wouldn't think that if she was quicker with her stories, it would make the quips seem less planted, I guess. There's also a tendency to get a bit preachy as opposed to funny with some topics because what everyone needs is a lecture on feminism, m i rite gang? Plus the usual canadian super jelly attitude to the USA pops up, but it means nothing because you're canadian (bring it). And then the final ten minutes is this weird attempt at storytelling for a speech she'll make at her sister's wedding, but feels like she doomed that marriage right the bat.
So I don't know, very conflicted. A key reason why there should be a 2.5 star rating, because I wouldn't say I liked it, but it had enough going for it to where I don't want to two-star it either. She's no Natasha Leggero in just savage roasting (the true Joan Rivers heir), but anybody over another Schlesinger special is welcome.
I haven't watched Luke Cage, but good music doesn't make me like a TV show. I can just listen to music and not spend 60 minutes watching a TV show. I anticipate that I won't like Luke Cage, but I'm not that into the Marvel stuff in the first place.
Don't you think music is one of the many things that come together to form a piece of film? Acting, direction, writing, cinematography, lighting, set design, and so on. All of these things are important, and in any given work one might stand out among the rest to elevate the piece as a whole. In one movie, it might be a standout performance by one of the actors. In another, it could be the incredible visuals created by the director and cinematographer. A show might be mainly good because it has a killer script.
Music can make a big difference - in how it sets the tone, guides and emphasizes emotion, how it combines with the other factors to create an atmosphere. And it's not just a uni-directional thing, where music only serves to enhance a film. Likewise, the context of the music within the film can enhance the music, making it a quite different experience to just listening to that music out of context.
What I'm saying is that in Luke Cage, music plays a larger role than it does in a lot of other shows. Among all the other aspects that make up the show, the music (for me) elevates the material in a meaningful way. And I do think that because a lot of people watch stuff on their laptops or phones or what have you, that this was lost on some portion of the viewership. It would be like watching Planet Earth (a nature documentary notable for its fantastic photography) in 240p - sure you'll get the gyst of what's going on but it will be missing something really important.
That's not to say that the music is the only reason I liked Luke Cage, or that that aspect alone is so transcendent that it would be enough to flip someone from a hater to a lover. I'm also definitely not saying that if you didn't like Luke Cage, you must not like music. I just think that the independent variables <%love music> and <%quality of sound system> are more relevant for determining <%like Luke Cage> than for a lot of other shows, certainly the other Marvel ones.
Music can definitely be a major factor in movies and TV shows, some other examples would be Guardians of the Galaxy, Supernatural, Chuck, The Martian..
In other Netflix news, I have been watching the Ninja Turtles series on there that is done in CGI, and this feels like the first time they really seemed like teenagers.
I feel like Luke Cage had two options. Either his powers make him an indestructible wildcard, and the story of the season isn't actually about Luke Cage so much as how his community and the underworld surrounding it respond to such implacable, indestructible disruption. Create tension not through risk to Luke Cage but through wondering his latest disruption is going to cause to an ensemble cast.
Or, make it a bit more about Luke, and create some shortcomings to his powers so that there's actually dramatic tension when he tries to complete a task. Just make him a strong dude instead of Super Strong, so his fights still have the tension not of whether he'll be harmed, but of whether he'll be able to accomplish the task he's trying for. For example in his assault on the building they can't shoot or stab him, and he can still plow through people, but trying to get through their hardened steel bars guarding the money is going to take some creative problem solving on his part.
Instead the show went for a sort of middle path of doing neither well.
It starts off wanting to focus on Luke Cage's community, but Luke is a loner, they kill the two figures that most represent that community, and it's never really more than an abstraction after that. And then they introduce the big bad and yawn, oh he's got super bullets, who gives a shit, of course Luke wins he's the main character who cares.
Luke Cage was good when it was cribbing from smarter blaxploitation films and crime stories, but its writing chops were just not up to developing any of the ideas that it took from those smarter properties.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
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Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
I'm surprised to hear people enjoyed the musical interludes in Luke Cage. Regardless of the quality of the music it just seemed empty padding to have the characters pause to watch a group soundcheck once an episode. And with the slow pace it was padding it couldn't afford. Maybe it would have been an interesting contrast if everything else ran at breakneck speed
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
Nah, just because the music doesn't advance the plot doesn't mean it was padding
The music scenes were great, and thematically important
Kana on
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
Today my Netflix suggestion queue had Dexter followed by Sinister right next to it, and I got so geekily happy that Dexter was on the left of Sinister.
The music in Luke Cage is important for the same reason why the scenes are the barber shop talking about basketball and black writers was important. It was a display of harlem/black culture.
A boring display. They can be pulling up a great playlist all they want, it's a boring series with a boring main character and boring supporting characters. And the bullet arc goes on way too long.
Yeah, and talking about black culture and having music in your show doesn't inherently make it good.
I haven't yet watched Luke Cage, but everybody I know IRL who watched it came away bored and disappointed by it. I'll give it a fair shot when I get caught up on some other stuff I'm watching to see how I feel about it. I feel like I'm more inclined to like it than my friends who didn't, but we'll see.
A boring display. They can be pulling up a great playlist all they want, it's a boring series with a boring main character and boring supporting characters. And the bullet arc goes on way too long.
Boring my butt. Every single time the show cut to Cottonmouth scheming something I got excited.
I worry that killing Cottonmouth will turn out to have been a bad choice.
He was a really great character and the more they reveal of him, the more I liked him as a character. And his interactions and fued with Luke were just wonderful.
I worry that killing Cottonmouth will turn out to have been a bad choice.
He was a really great character and the more they reveal of him, the more I liked him as a character. And his interactions and fued with Luke were just wonderful.
yes
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
Luke Cage has a whole lot of flaws, but the music sequences aren't one of them.
They're not just padding, they're establishing that Cottonmouth has created a club, a black club, that plays fantastic music - black music. The club he built isn't just some entrepreneurial venture or money laundering scheme, it's something that matters to Cottonmouth's soul. The music is how that is communicated, that even as we root for Luke Cage to stop Cottonmouth, we also enjoy and appreciate what Cottonmouth has built. And that's something that's especially thematically poignant in Harlem, a black neighborhood that was built and defined through black music.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
Luke Cage has a whole lot of flaws, but the music sequences aren't one of them.
They're not just padding, they're establishing that Cottonmouth has created a club, a black club, that plays fantastic music - black music. The club he built isn't just some entrepreneurial venture or money laundering scheme, it's something that matters to Cottonmouth's soul. The music is how that is communicated, that even as we root for Luke Cage to stop Cottonmouth, we also enjoy and appreciate what Cottonmouth has built. And that's something that's especially thematically poignant in Harlem, a black neighborhood that was built and defined through black music.
Seriously, I'm half way through and this series is black as fuck and very deliberately so. No just in it's cast (and it's kinda amazing watching it that when you stop and think about it, there's almost no white people in this show at all) but in what it wants to talk about and centre it's story around. Cottonmouth vs Cage is explicitly a black on black conflict within a black community and Cottonmouth is defined by being a black man within that community.
However the series overall turns out, I'm really impressed at what they've done on that front. It feels like they are doing right by a character that was, afaik, the first major headlining black superhero.
Luke Cage has a whole lot of flaws, but the music sequences aren't one of them.
They're not just padding, they're establishing that Cottonmouth has created a club, a black club, that plays fantastic music - black music. The club he built isn't just some entrepreneurial venture or money laundering scheme, it's something that matters to Cottonmouth's soul. The music is how that is communicated, that even as we root for Luke Cage to stop Cottonmouth, we also enjoy and appreciate what Cottonmouth has built. And that's something that's especially thematically poignant in Harlem, a black neighborhood that was built and defined through black music.
Cottonmouth has a giant picture of Biggie. The shot from the promos where he stands so he's covering Biggie and the crown looks like it's on his head blew me away. Just, phenomenal mise en scene there.
Haven't yet watched Luke Cage as I mentioned, but there's a ton of great black TV on the air right now. Black-ish and Atlanta are both good shows, obviously different genres from each other and also from Luke Cage. It's cool though.
Bwa ha ha, they made a CGI movie of Gantz called Gantz:O (not zero, the letter "O", because it's Gantz). It's on Netflix.
Seems to be an alternate reality version, not a continuation of the original anime. It doesn't appear that Kei and Kato know each other in this version, though I'm only halfway through.
EDIT: Oh that scamp Gantz. Anyway, I guess this classifies as anime, so I won't say anything further.
I assume it's not as graphic as the manga or they wouldn't let it on netflix
Bwa ha ha, they made a CGI movie of Gantz called Gantz:O (not zero, the letter "O", because it's Gantz). It's on Netflix.
Seems to be an alternate reality version, not a continuation of the original anime. It doesn't appear that Kei and Kato know each other in this version, though I'm only halfway through.
EDIT: Oh that scamp Gantz. Anyway, I guess this classifies as anime, so I won't say anything further.
I assume it's not as graphic as the manga or they wouldn't let it on netflix
It isn't as graphic as the anime (haven't read the manga), but it is still pretty messed up.
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DD season 2 - I loved Punisher and The Hand story was really fun for me.
JJ - Great first half, not great second half.
Luke Cage - It is my favorite show of the Marvel Netflix shows. Love the style, enjoyed most of the characters. Cottonmouth was amazing. I enjoyed Luke being the closest thing to an actual hero on these shows. I didnt care for the other villain on the show, but Mariah and Shades wew amazing.
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The bolded are important messages and I agree that Luke Cage's story conveyed those things.
But something can have a good and meaningful message yet still be boring and/or not entertaining.
edit: fwiw, I'd put Luke Cage S1 above DD S1, but below DD S2 and Jessica Jones
I think this was the worst part about that whole thing. They had done a really amazing job with his character development up until that point and then just sort of went "screw it" and backtracked all of it.
I pretty much agree with your assessment entirely. I still like the show (haven't started the current season yet), though am disappointed that it hasn't really been what I thought it would be post season 1.
Overall I liked the series that came out but they're two for two on "Great start, terrible finish." With Maybe Jessica Jones probably avoiding it. I had problems with that for other reasons mostly because of how skeeved out my girlfriend got every time Killgrave was on screen. Probably their strongest written villain that isn't Wilson Fisk.
"...only mights and maybes."
Seems to be an alternate reality version, not a continuation of the original anime. It doesn't appear that Kei and Kato know each other in this version, though I'm only halfway through.
EDIT: Oh that scamp Gantz. Anyway, I guess this classifies as anime, so I won't say anything further.
I think I feel better about DD Season 1 and Jessica Jones because they focus on a single villain arc through the whole thing. DD Season 2 and Luke Cage feels very bait-and-switchy, especially with how strong they start out.
The thing that sneaks up on you is that it isn't about the main dude villains.
This is a lady named Katherine Ryan, a canadian living in the uk who I know mainly from 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and some other panel shows, and her schtick if you want to call it that is being a little bit like Joan Rivers. It's an hour special that is alright, nowhere near as good as Maria Bamford or Jimmy Carr's, but nowhere near as bad as Iliza Schlesinger and I'd say better than Bill Burr's recent special. She goes to crowd work immediately which is kind of weird because half of material is pretty smart and funny, she just takes a long time to get into the stories by trying to pad out stuff with audience questions. And sometimes she has super smart comebacks and jokes but at the same time it comes across like she was just waiting until she found someone to play off a pre-scripted thing, and you wouldn't think that if she was quicker with her stories, it would make the quips seem less planted, I guess. There's also a tendency to get a bit preachy as opposed to funny with some topics because what everyone needs is a lecture on feminism, m i rite gang? Plus the usual canadian super jelly attitude to the USA pops up, but it means nothing because you're canadian (bring it). And then the final ten minutes is this weird attempt at storytelling for a speech she'll make at her sister's wedding, but feels like she doomed that marriage right the bat.
So I don't know, very conflicted. A key reason why there should be a 2.5 star rating, because I wouldn't say I liked it, but it had enough going for it to where I don't want to two-star it either. She's no Natasha Leggero in just savage roasting (the true Joan Rivers heir), but anybody over another Schlesinger special is welcome.
Don't you think music is one of the many things that come together to form a piece of film? Acting, direction, writing, cinematography, lighting, set design, and so on. All of these things are important, and in any given work one might stand out among the rest to elevate the piece as a whole. In one movie, it might be a standout performance by one of the actors. In another, it could be the incredible visuals created by the director and cinematographer. A show might be mainly good because it has a killer script.
Music can make a big difference - in how it sets the tone, guides and emphasizes emotion, how it combines with the other factors to create an atmosphere. And it's not just a uni-directional thing, where music only serves to enhance a film. Likewise, the context of the music within the film can enhance the music, making it a quite different experience to just listening to that music out of context.
What I'm saying is that in Luke Cage, music plays a larger role than it does in a lot of other shows. Among all the other aspects that make up the show, the music (for me) elevates the material in a meaningful way. And I do think that because a lot of people watch stuff on their laptops or phones or what have you, that this was lost on some portion of the viewership. It would be like watching Planet Earth (a nature documentary notable for its fantastic photography) in 240p - sure you'll get the gyst of what's going on but it will be missing something really important.
That's not to say that the music is the only reason I liked Luke Cage, or that that aspect alone is so transcendent that it would be enough to flip someone from a hater to a lover. I'm also definitely not saying that if you didn't like Luke Cage, you must not like music. I just think that the independent variables <%love music> and <%quality of sound system> are more relevant for determining <%like Luke Cage> than for a lot of other shows, certainly the other Marvel ones.
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Or, make it a bit more about Luke, and create some shortcomings to his powers so that there's actually dramatic tension when he tries to complete a task. Just make him a strong dude instead of Super Strong, so his fights still have the tension not of whether he'll be harmed, but of whether he'll be able to accomplish the task he's trying for. For example in his assault on the building they can't shoot or stab him, and he can still plow through people, but trying to get through their hardened steel bars guarding the money is going to take some creative problem solving on his part.
Instead the show went for a sort of middle path of doing neither well.
Luke Cage was good when it was cribbing from smarter blaxploitation films and crime stories, but its writing chops were just not up to developing any of the ideas that it took from those smarter properties.
The music scenes were great, and thematically important
And, shit, they wrote a Luke Cage rap for Luke Cage. You can't get much more relevant than that.
I haven't yet watched Luke Cage, but everybody I know IRL who watched it came away bored and disappointed by it. I'll give it a fair shot when I get caught up on some other stuff I'm watching to see how I feel about it. I feel like I'm more inclined to like it than my friends who didn't, but we'll see.
so good you guys
Boring my butt. Every single time the show cut to Cottonmouth scheming something I got excited.
He was a really great character and the more they reveal of him, the more I liked him as a character. And his interactions and fued with Luke were just wonderful.
yes
They're not just padding, they're establishing that Cottonmouth has created a club, a black club, that plays fantastic music - black music. The club he built isn't just some entrepreneurial venture or money laundering scheme, it's something that matters to Cottonmouth's soul. The music is how that is communicated, that even as we root for Luke Cage to stop Cottonmouth, we also enjoy and appreciate what Cottonmouth has built. And that's something that's especially thematically poignant in Harlem, a black neighborhood that was built and defined through black music.
Seriously, I'm half way through and this series is black as fuck and very deliberately so. No just in it's cast (and it's kinda amazing watching it that when you stop and think about it, there's almost no white people in this show at all) but in what it wants to talk about and centre it's story around. Cottonmouth vs Cage is explicitly a black on black conflict within a black community and Cottonmouth is defined by being a black man within that community.
However the series overall turns out, I'm really impressed at what they've done on that front. It feels like they are doing right by a character that was, afaik, the first major headlining black superhero.
Cottonmouth has a giant picture of Biggie. The shot from the promos where he stands so he's covering Biggie and the crown looks like it's on his head blew me away. Just, phenomenal mise en scene there.
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4 filler episodes.
Yeah
It's an OVA. The actual second season apparently isn't even out in Japan yet.
But yeah, the labeling is crap.
I assume it's not as graphic as the manga or they wouldn't let it on netflix
It isn't as graphic as the anime (haven't read the manga), but it is still pretty messed up.